Perishable foods for home, market, catering and restaurant buffets are conventionally chilled by ice or commercially manufactured containers of freezable material, or by refrigeration systems. When the ice melts and the freezable material warms, these cooling media lose their ability to keep foods safe and may render them unsuitable or hazardous for consumption. Refrigeration systems are bulky and costly, requiring condensers, coils and harmful chemicals and, further, must be serviced and maintained. Additionally, they are not easily adapted for portability.
Other foods need to be heated or kept warm for home, market, catering and restaurant buffet service. Conventional sources of heat include flame and electricity, e.g. by use of alcohol-based combustible gels or by electric hot plates. Flame sources often produce local hot spots and uneven heating and may produce fumes, odors, or other combustion products. The indoor pollution and health risks to food service workers and patrons from these combustion products may be viewed with concern by those in the industry.
In the presentation of food and/or beverages such as for a buffet service, it is often desirable to store, transport, and/or present the buffet items in a convenient, presentable fashion. It is often further desirable to provide the items either above or below the ambient temperature of the presentation environment. Moreover, in-home hosting has trended upward, and could benefit from equipment improvement. Further, the costs and convenience of improved buffet service, storage, transportation, and/or presentation means may be improved such that they are more accessible and feasible in the market place.
While traditional servers for heating and/or cooling may not require fuel or ice to achieve a desired temperature of an item, traditional servers may rely on a temperature adjusting element in conjunction with an active exchange device, e.g., a liquid circulation pump, to facilitate energy transfer and thus mitigating the temperature of the temperature adjusting element. This approach may generate noise may typically increases the cost of the traditional server.